Gwaine's Really Bad Week
by Devon Shea
Summary: Gwaine finds something amazing in the mines of Ismere.


The man definitely had a death wish. Percival simply shook his head as Gwaine threw insults at the Saxon guarding them. He wasn't at all surprised when the Saxon punched Gwaine in the solar plexus. What surprised him was that Gwaine didn't try to fight back.

"What the hell does 'your father smells like elderberries' even mean, Gwaine?" The guard had moved on now that the prisoners' meager dinner and inadvertent show was over.

Gwaine grinned. "Means his father's a drunk."

Percival snorted. "Trust you to use something like that as an insult. Need a hand up?"

"Could use one. I think that one we'll have to keep an eye on." Gwaine took short breaths as he picked up the pick he had been handed upon being shoved ignominiously into the tunnels below Ismere.

"Is that what you're doing? Seeing which ones we can get around?"

Gwaine shrugged. "We have to figure out how to escape somehow."

"Arthur-"

"Is far enough away that he's going to have to figure out how to get around Morgana's soldiers before he can figure out how to get to us down here."

"Oy! You! Get to work or I'll use something sharper than my fist next time!"

Percival tapped the pick with his own. "Come on, let's not get killed today."

Gwaine chuckled darkly. "Yeah, there's always tomorrow."

Time in the mines under Ismere started to run together for the prisoners. They'd dig and smash rocks until they couldn't work anymore, and the guards were forced to let them rest. At first the guards had them working in shifts, but a few small rebellions before the force from Camelot arrived had proven that it was easier to keep watch over the whole group when they weren't in motion.

Gwaine tried to sleep in the short times provided them, but it was difficult for sleep to come when the lights of the torches, dim as they were, cast flickering shadows that played behind his eyelids. His mind raced as he tried to figure out how to get out of the caves under the citadel. Saxon guards were everywhere. He'd figured out which were the lazy ones, but there weren't enough of them to guarantee the men's safe escape, and he intended to make sure as many of the soldiers he rode out of Camelot with as possible rode back in. Arthur had trusted him with their lives, and he wasn't going to let the king down any more than he already felt he had by letting them all get captured.

The faint scrape of a footstep on rock pulled Gwaine from his attempt to sleep. When he turned to look at the source of the sound, he saw an odd, bluish light moving in the darkness of the cavern some of the other prisoners had just opened up the day before. Before he could show it to Percival one of the guards walked back in their direction, forcing them to pretend to be asleep again. Gwaine listened for the scrape and the strange hiss he'd heard until he couldn't stay awake any longer and fell asleep.

The next day, Gwaine and Percival were clearing out the rocks surrounding the new tunnel when Gwaine heard the hissing and saw the odd blue light flit past the entrance to the tunnel. "It's back."

He knew he should pick up the large rock on the ground but he couldn't restrain his curiosity. He needed to know what that blue light was. Gwaine could practically feel Percival's eyes roll behind him when he told him to cover for him and slipped into the tunnel, following the blue light.

He carefully made his way through the dim tunnel, listening for the hiss and trying not to lose the faint trace of light. After a few minutes the light in the tunnel he was following brightened and he came out into one of the tunnels the slaves had already carved open. He caught one more fleeting glimpse of that blue light when he felt the arms of the Saxon guard he'd taunted a few days earlier grab him around the neck.

The weeks of hard labor, scant food, and little sleep conspired to make him weaker than he normally was. The last thing he saw was the helmed faces of the guard and his friend as they started kicking him on the ground.

Pain was the first thing Gwaine registered as he started to wake up. His head hurt worse than the aftermath of any drunken night he'd ever had and he was pretty sure he had more than one broken rib. As he surfaced a little more he realized there was a blue light nearby.

The sight that met him when he finally opened his eyes was enough to make him start, sending more pain rushing through his body as he pulled his ribs. The amazing creature that sat calmly next to him was something Gwaine had never seen in his years of wandering before he'd settled in Camelot. "You have nothing to fear."

Gwaine thanked the luminous creature, but its next words shocked him. Worthy of its help? Gwaine had never felt worthy. How could he be worthy when he couldn't even keep his men from being captured by Morgana? He'd never quite understood exactly why Merlin or even Arthur stood by him and wanted him to be one of the knights.

"Who are you?"

Its story about being the last of its kind and not even finding peace here in this remote cave system made his heart clench. What must it be like to be so alone, but welcome that solitude? And when even that last comfort was violated by men invading your home? His rescuer was amazing. He wanted to stay awake and talk to his mysterious savior, but he could barely keep his eyes open.

Gwaine felt himself drifting back to sleep. Thoughts raced through his mind, even as it became cloudier. He certainly didn't feel like the 'fair knight' it called him. If he was this fair knight worthy of its healing magic, then he should be able to defend it from the Saxons. He should be able to get his men free. He should-

sleep-

and dream of tall, blue people who glowed as they gazed down at him and protected him with their magic.

The next few days passed in a blur. The creature woke Gwaine long enough to lift his head so he could drink and eat bits of bread and meat it must have stolen from the Saxons. It helped him to a spot that led to a deep hole so he could take care of certain necessities, holding him upright when his ribs and head were screaming. Gwaine was, for once, mostly quiet. It hurt too much to talk.

In his twilight awareness between the times he woke up and the dreams where there was no pain, it told him stories of time past, when its people lived on the surface among the humans. It never did tell him its name, or what its people called themselves, but it told him of animals that no longer roamed the lands, and when the Sidhe and the Fae still walked among men. It reminded Gwaine of his childhood, when his mother would tell him and his sister stories as they fell asleep.

He dreamed of dragons flying across the skies. There were large, shaggy creatures that looked like the elephants in one of Gaius' books Gwaine had read while recuperating from an injury. A long, serpentine neck and head topped off the lake monster that watched him with its head cocked curiously before it slipped underwater. Trolls sneered at him as he dreamed of them wallowing in their disgusting beds.

His ribs were still terribly sore, but much better healed than they would be on their own, when his mysterious friend woke him to the sounds of the warning bells. Finally, he could repay his friend by protecting it against the Saxons swarming the tunnels.

The torch felt solid in his hand. It would make a good club. The warm end from the fire he'd extinguished when he pulled the torch from the sconce would do even more damage. He set himself, readying for the pain of his ribs against the blow he'd land on the Saxon guard coming down the tunnel towards them. If he was lucky, maybe it would even be the one who'd taken such joy in kicking his ribs in.

He leaped out from behind the rock he and his friend were using to hide, but misjudged where the guard was. The blond guard (Arthur!) reached out and stopped the torch from whacking him on the head. Gwaine let his momentum pull him forward, too happy to see the king he'd come to respect to care that he looked like a clumsy fool.

His mysterious friend peeped around the rock and suddenly Gwaine was nervous. Arthur wasn't exactly the most accepting about magic, and Gwaine's friend was all magic. It was so completely magic it was literally another species.

"I owe it my life."

Gwaine could see the change from confusion to resignation in Arthur's face. Magic. More magic. Magic that, instead of harming like Morgana's, healed. Healed and saved.

"Let's go, Gwaine." Arthur sighed. "We need to meet with the others and get out of here."

"I think I know which tunnel we're in. Follow me." Gwaine nodded and waved his thanks to his luminous friend once more, before turning and leading Arthur and Merlin away. He wished it could come with him. Wished he could protect it as it had protected him the past week. However, there was no safe place for his rescuer in Camelot, and the gods knew it would get no peace here, but at least Arthur had let it go without trying to harm it. The king was mellowing a bit, even if he didn't realize it.

For now, Gwaine just wanted to find Percival and the others, defeat the guards, get back to Camelot, and then take a long hot bath, followed by about three days of oblivion in the softest bed he could find. If food and ale happened at some point in there, all the better.

* * *

**My entry for the Merlin CanonFest 2019.**

**Merlin belongs to Shine and the BBC.**


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